Carrizo oil gas royalty distribution

Is anyone else getting the run around every other month of getting their Minerial royalty checks from Carrizo like I and family has? We have a producing lease with them in Frio and LaSalle County Texas. No one has ever a specific answer other than its going in suspense. This has been so frustrating , they have been producing since May 2012 and only have received 3 very shorted and wrong checks. Does any one else have an issue like this?? It seems if you had 65,000 royalty and working interest checks to send out every month it would pay interest in a huge way to hold up even 10% of these??? Tell I’m frustrated??? Lol

Jeff, I don't think it's a bad idea to find out if it's happening to others but you may be on your own since class actions have been dismissed against Chesapeake because the leases were not exactly the same. The bad thing about leasing is that once the lessee has your lease, you are in business with them, if hydrocarbons are produced you own none of them, not even a tiny bit. In the eyes of the law they aren't stealing from you, it's just a business dispute over money, and all you can do is sue. On the other hand, since you probably can't band together in a suit, it would be nice if the operator got 6500 letters from lawyers in one month. Even if people did not stay the course and their suits were dismissed, the operators lawyers aren't free. If each case averaged cost of $5,000 [a mere 10 hours lawyer time] X 6,500, that would be $32,500,000. That would be an attention getter. The thing is that they know that nobody wants to sue an oil company, many lawyers would advise against it. I think everyone should get a letter sent on law office letterhead at the fist sign of any trouble, but people are too lazy. If people do not respect their own rights, why should they expect more than contempt from a lessee or operator? Previous generations have allowed what passes today to become the norm and things will only get worse as long as people don't make waves. The best advice now is to get help with your lease. The payment of royalty should be a condition of any lease, without which the lease expires because there is no other benefit to having your minerals leased. If it turns out there isn't a thing you can do, consider making a ripple now and then anyway.

Thank you. It’s 65,000 checks. I will take all under consideration. Thank you.

Jeff, I was making reference to your statement that just 10% of the checks not being sent would be substantial. If you think about it, suppose you are the staff legal person and even 1,000 letters hit your desk, you could probably read all of them in a month, possibly even organize and file them if you had help. What you could not do, is even begin to find out if what you are looking at is trouble or not.

Jeff Hamm said:

Thank you. It's 65,000 checks. I will take all under consideration. Thank you.

Have an attorney look at your lease and see if there is grounds for sending a notice of termination. That usually gets their attention.

You say that your royalty payments are going "in suspense." That usually means that there is some major problem with the title to where the company is not positive who the actual owners are. I doubt that this is actually the case with you since you are actually receiveing royalty checks. You also say that three of your checks were "shorted" and "wrong." They might be lower because the price of natural gas is about one-fourth of what it was 4-5 years ago, or the Lessor and assigns, if any, might have shut in your well, waiting for the price to come back up, in which case the payment would be significantly lower.